COVID-19

Ruben Durante, Luigi Guiso, and Giorgio Gulino Social distancing can succeed in slowing the spread of COVID-19 if citizens voluntary comply with it and internalize the cost of their mobility on others. How do civic values mediate this process? Using data on individual mobility across Italian provinces we document that, after the beginning of the […] 

On April 9th, 2020, the IGM hosted a webinar to examine various approaches to modeling the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis. James Stock (Harvard) moderated the event and speakers included Andrew Atkeson (UCLA), Martin Eichenbaum (Northwestern), Francesco Lippi (LUISS University), Thomas Philippon (NYU), and Eric Budish (Chicago Booth). Each of the speakers described their […] 

With the economy in lockdown, low-income workers who are above the poverty line will suffer a relatively bigger hit to their incomes than those further up the distribution (even accounting for all government support schemes). With the economy in lockdown, existing gaps in access to quality education between high- and low-income households will be exacerbated. […] 

Nicholas Bloom et al While assessing the economic impact of COVID-19 is essential, it is challenging due to the extreme speed with which the crisis unfolded. This column uses three forward-looking uncertainty measures to quantify the enormous increase in economic uncertainty over the past weeks. Feeding these COVID-induced uncertainty shocks into a model of disaster […] 

Elena Carletti, Marco Pagano, Lorina Pelizzon, and Marti Subrahmanyam Various proposals have recently been put forward to funnel liquidity to businesses before they are forced to lay off employees, cancel their supplies, and eventually close their doors. This column calls for coordinated intervention at the European level, through the creation of a pan-European equity fund, […] 

Sam Hanson, Jeremy Stein, Adi Sunderam, and Eric Zwick We propose that the government provide business continuity support, allowing businesses to meet their recurring fixed obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to avoid a large wave of bankruptcies and preserve firm balance sheets to set the stage for a strong economic recovery once […] 

James Stock et al Testing for SARS-CoV-2 in the United States is currently targeted to individuals whose symptoms and/or jobs place them at a high presumed risk of infection. An open question is, what is the share of infections that are undetected under current testing guidelines? To answer this question, we turn to COVID-19 testing […] 

Camille Landais, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman European governments have reacted swiftly to the COVID crisis and are now discussing ways to mutualise the cost of the epidemic. This column proposes the creation of a progressive, time-limited, European-wide progressive wealth tax assessed on the net worth of the top 1% richest individuals. If fighting COVID-19 […] 

Jean-Pierre Danthine, et al Due to COVID-19, large parts of the world economy are being put on hold by government fiat. We argue that – on efficiency as well as equity grounds – the state should generously support not only labour but also capital costs, the latter through ex ante partially reimbursable, rapidly disbursed ‘corona […] 

Even if tests for Covid-19 are being rationed, there is an urgent need for some random testing to establish baseline levels of the virus to inform any decisions about ending lockdowns. Required elements for an economic ‘restart’ after lockdowns include a massive increase in testing capacity (for infections and antibodies) along with a coherent strategy […]